


The Long, Weird Night of the Kitten Shark

by Deifire



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-15 20:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13038837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deifire/pseuds/Deifire
Summary: Amanda and Farah are trying to have a night to themselves, but Dirk and Todd have a new case. Or maybe just a cat.





	The Long, Weird Night of the Kitten Shark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheWrongKindOfPC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWrongKindOfPC/gifts).



> Set in a near future where Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has been in business a small while and the guys are raising the kitten shark. 
> 
> Minor spoilers for the Season 2 finale.

The first thing that comes to Amanda Brotzman's attention when she wakes up is the rhythmic, vaguely electronic buzzing that seems to be coming from somewhere nearby.

"Vogel," she mumbles, pulling a pillow over her face without bothering to open her eyes. "'Mmmtrynasleep." 

The second thing that comes to Amanda Brotzman's attention is her body telling her it's early. Stupid early. One of those hours that no sane person should ever see except from the other side.

The buzzing continues, and no, it's not Vogel playing with the electric razor again. Her next thought, a holdover from days of working shitty jobs where stupid early was sometimes the start of her shift, is alarm clock. But the Rowdy 3 don't really do alarm clocks, except Gripps sometimes when he insists on waiting exactly one hour for his toenail polish to dry before putting on socks again.

The third thing that comes to Amanda Brotzman's attention as she's pulled further into consciousness is that nothing in her immediate environment smells like the van. The pillow over her face isn't her pillow, she can't hear Martin snoring, and she's surrounded not by five bodies, but by just one snuggled up against her.

For a second, Amanda has no idea where she is.

And then the body rolls away and a familiar, sleepy voice says, "Hello?" Then, "Do you have any idea what time it is in Cleveland?"

Oh, right. Girlfriend. Hotel. And the buzzing, which has now mercifully stopped, must have been said girlfriend's phone.

Amanda's not used to waking up in luxury hotels, but one of the few downsides to living on the road in a van full of psychic vampires and a beast from a magical dimension is the lack of privacy. It's not like the guys wouldn't clear out for a while if she wanted, but Amanda would feel bad asking them to vacate their own home just for her to spend some one-on-one time with Farah. Plus, leaving the Rowdies at loose ends for that extended a period of time tends to results in property damage and phrases like, "want you out of town by sunrise" and "no longer welcome at this or any other Waffle House establishment" shouted at top volume.

So whenever Farah flies out to meet Amanda somewhere on the road, they get a hotel room. A nice hotel room. This one has a Jacuzzi and probably the most comfortable mattress Amanda has ever slept on in her life.

Amanda still sometimes can't quite believe that she's dating a beautiful, badass woman like Farah Black. A beautiful, badass woman who is also a millionaire and can afford stuff like this on the regular.

"Uh-huh…yeah…Todd, what's going on?" says Farah into the phone, tone shifting from sleepy-and-worried to confused-yet-taking-charge in a way that makes Amanda's stomach flutter.

That feeling's followed by a sudden spike of irritation. Yeah, she knew from the day she first confessed her crush to a partner in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency that having Farah in her life also meant having the world's strangest detective in it. And her older brother. But still.

"I don't know," Farah continues. "I mean, yeah, that's weird." 

Amanda stirs, rolls over and catches her eye. "Case?" she mouths.

Farah shrugs at her, then says into the phone. "Well, sometimes they do weird things…"

Amanda tosses the pillow she's holding away and sits up. "Holistic boyfriend?" she offers as her second guess.

Farah covers the bottom of the phone with her hand. "Kitten shark," she whispers.

Amanda sighs. She's forgiven her brother a lot of things. Well, mostly forgiven. But at this particular moment, a lifetime of lies pales in comparison to waking her and Farah up at—she glances over at bedside alarm clock—3:42 a.m. local time. She groans, pulls herself into a kneeling position and leans over to kiss Farah on the cheek. "I'm going to get a soda."

"There's some in the mini-bar." Farah gestures at the small fridge next to the TV. 

Right. Not only can Farah afford expensive hotel rooms, she can also afford not to think twice about paying three bucks for a can of soda as the price of not having to put on pants.

"Yes, that's Amanda," Farah says into the phone. "Yes, she's fine." Then to Amanda, "Todd says sorry."

"Tell him to go fuck himself," Amanda says cheerfully as she takes a Coke from the fridge and pops the top.

"Look, why don't I just put you on speakerphone?" Farah says instead. She presses a button and places the phone down on the middle of the bed so they can all hear each other.

"No, wait! That's okay. Don't—" The sound of Todd's voice fills the room. Then, "I'm on speaker already, aren't I?"

"Yep," Amanda says. "What's up, loser? And you'd better tell me its an emergency."

"It's, um…" Todd begins, as Amanda mentally dares him to lie to her. 

"A potential emergency. Or maybe not an emergency as such," interrupts Dirk's voice. "But definitely an anomaly."

So they're together. Good.

"An anomaly?" Amanda repeats. "An anomaly worth waking up your partner at three o'clock in the morning?"

"Sorry about that," Todd says.

"Yes, as it turns out my otherwise perfect assistant may not have the best possible grasp of time zones," says Dirk.

"Okay, now you're pissing me off—" says Todd.

"What," Amanda cuts them off, "is wrong with the kitten shark?"

"Well, she's…" Todd pauses as if searching for the right word. "She staring."

"Staring?" Amanda repeats.

"Yes. At nothing!" Dirk says this like it's the most fascinating thing a cat has even done.

Farah shakes her head.

"It's like this," Todd explains. "When we got home, er, to Dirk's place, she was just kind of staring intently at this one corner of the kitchen ceiling."

"And making that noise," Dirk adds. "The bird noise."

"Right, that chattering noise she makes when she sees birds at the window," Todd confirms. "And she was pacing back and forth. At first I thought it might be something from upstairs or a spider…"

"But nothing from upstairs?" Farah asks.

"No current tenants in that apartment and nothing unusual living there instead," says Todd.

Amanda's not going to ask how they know that. "And not a spider?" she guesses.

"Not unless it was invisible," says Todd.

"Ooh, you don't think—?" Dirk begins, and there's just something so endearingly Dirk-like about the way he sounds excited rather than terrified at the prospect of invisible spiders in his apartment.

"We gave her some food and that seemed to distract her, and then we, um…well, we, um…" Todd's struggling to say the next part without actually saying it or actively lying to them, Amanda can tell. "We were in the other room for a while…"

"Oh, for crying out loud!" Amanda finally interrupts. "Just say you were fucking!"

"Amanda!"

Amanda snickers at the way she can almost hear Todd blush. She and Farah exchange a grin.

"When we got back to the kitchen some time later," says Dirk, not in the slightest bit embarrassed that Amanda knows he's sleeping and practically living with her brother these days, "she was back to doing it again. The staring and the pacing and all. So that was when Todd decided it was time to call the agency's feline behavior expert."

"I had one cat!" says Farah. "One, when I was eight. And he ran away when I was twelve. And at no point did he ever contain the weaponized soul of a hammerhead shark."

"Still, that makes you more of an expert than the rest of us," says Todd.

Amanda rolls her eyes. "None of this sound like anything resembling an emergency."

"It _is_ an anomaly," says Dirk.

"I'm not even sure that it's that," says Farah. "I think you may just have a cat being a cat."

"Well, like you just said, technically, she's a shark—" Todd begins.

"Toooddddd," Amanda says, drawing her brother's name out for several syllables. "The CIA is an emergency. That one time at the tyrannosaurus rex exhibit was an emergency. That thing with Tina and the biker gang when we went back to Montana? Emergency. This? Not an emergency. And in no way worth waking innocent people up at this hour of the morning."

"Again, I'm really sorry about that," says Todd. "But as long as you're both up, is it okay if I switch to video and have Farah take a quick look so she can tell us if this is weird or not?"

"Toooddddd," Amanda repeats, this time with much more of a groan.

"Okay," says Farah. "Fine. Okay. I'll take a look."

"Todd, you are such an asshole," Amanda mutters, but she joins Farah on the bed and snuggles closer to her as Todd's video appears on the tiny cell phone screen.

The first image they see when Todd moves his hand away from the lens is Dirk, wearing his Mexican Funeral t-shirt and boxers the same bright yellow as the jacket of his that Amanda likes best.

The camera pans around him and there's the kitten shark. Who has never had another name name except Kitten Shark, and probably never will, despite its increasing inaccuracy. She's not quite as little these days, now that she's almost a cat shark, and a round, spoiled one at that.

Amanda watches as the small black cat paces back and forth across the kitchen floor, her eyes fixed on a spot on the ceiling. She's chattering, and every once in a while she pauses to let out a small, plaintive mew. 

Todd pans the camera up to the spot near the ceiling the cat's staring at. Amanda can't see anything there. 

"That's…a little odd," Farah admits. "But—"

"Wait, what the hell is that?" asks Todd.

"Holy shit," says Amanda, as the spot on near the ceiling begins to shimmer. She doesn't know quite how to describe it, but something about it moves, as though space is folding over and then in on itself, tearing in the process.

And then out of nowhere, something falls through the tear and shatter all over Dirk's kitchen floor.

Amanda sees Todd's hand reach into the frame and pull Dirk backward out of harm's way by his shirt, and then Todd drops the phone, and all they can see is darkness as Dirk shouts, "Todd!" and Todd shouts, "Don't worry, I've got her!" and Dirk shouts back, "Mind the glass!" and then, "What kind of flowers are those?"

Farah grabs Amanda's hand with a reassuring squeeze and holds on until Todd picks up the phone again. 

Amanda's more relieved than she'll ever admit when she sees her stupid brother's stupid face onscreen. She forgets to even make fun of the fact he's wearing boxers with little pink robots on them.

"We're okay," Todd says. "Except that a large bowl of petunias just appeared out of nowhere and then exploded all over Dirk's kitchen." He moves the camera so that they can see the flowers and dirt and broken pieces of glass all over the floor. "There's not even a wet circle on the ceiling."

Amanda wonders at what point she started living a life where that sentence makes complete sense.

"We appear to have a new case," Dirk says. 

The kitten in his arms mews.

"You know, I had a hunch the universe was guiding me to take this particular apartment for reasons beyond its proximity to public transit," Dirk continues. "At any rate, while I have no idea what exactly is going on, I think it would be best to have Module B of the agency here on standby just in case—"

Farah yawns. "There is no Module B," she says. "Because that organizational system makes no sense. But, yes. I'll get the next flight I can back to Seattle. Call me back if anything else falls into your kitchen."

Amanda swears under her breath, because yes, this is a situation that definitely calls for pants. And a bra, she mentally adds as she leans over to retrieve hers from the lampshade. She pauses to kiss Farah on the cheek. "Drop me off at the van on the way to the airport?" she says. "I can get the guys awake and be on the road back to Seattle within the hour."

Farah looks at her. "You don't have to."

"What are you kidding?" Amanda says. "Look, I won't claim to know as much about the will of universe as Dirk does, but everything is connected. I don't think it's a coincidence that I was here when you got that call." She really doesn't. There's something under her skin that's not quite the pararibulitis that's itching to be a part of whatever weird shit just happened. And getting to hang out with Farah in the meantime is more than a bonus.

They stop for a last, long kiss before finding the rest of their clothes.

Amanda swipes the rest of the sodas and all of the energy drinks from the mini bar before they leave the room. She and the Rowdy 3 have got a long, weird night ahead of them.


End file.
